Vocabulary Spotlight | 3 Confusing Words

The A to Z English Podcast

In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl shares 3 confusing words with the listeners. She and Jack explain the meanings of the words and how to use them in sentences.

Transcript:

00:00:00

Jack

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00:00:17

Jack

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00:00:18

Jack

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00:00:22

Jack

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00:00:23

Jack

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00:00:50

Jack

Welcome to the A-Z English podcast. My name is Jack and I'm here with my co-host social. And today we're going to share. Well, we're going to do a we're under the vocabulary spotlight and we are going to share some words that we came across during our English corner classes that students kind of struggle with. And so so.

00:01:11

Jack

Was the first one that you you had that you came up with?

00:01:15

Xochitl

The first one I noticed students struggled a little bit with was workload, the pronunciation, workload and then on top of that, what it meant workload is just. It's a compound word. It has the word work in it and the word load in it, and you put it together.

00:01:19

발표자

Hmm.

00:01:36

Xochitl

With no spaces and its workload, so workload just means the amount of work that each person is.

00:01:44

Xochitl

Uh.

00:01:45

Jack

Each.

00:01:45

Xochitl

Person's share of work so that can be at your house like domestic tasks like chores or that can also be at your job. You know, between your colleagues you may have a heavier workload if you have a higher position in the company. So that's kind of what workload refers to.

00:02:08

Jack

Yeah, exactly. It's, it's it's a lot of times you hear it with the word share shared workload.

00:02:15

Jack

You know, so you have, you have this like?

00:02:18

Jack

The certain amount of work that you have to do at your office and then they divide it among the employees. You're gonna do this much? You're gonna do this much? You're gonna do this much? You're gonna do this much, and each piece is your workload.

00:02:33

Jack

And and then you basically just start working away, chipping away at it, you know, trying to to decrease it down to 0.

00:02:42

Jack

And of course, in the company or corporation it never gets down to 0 because there's always more work. You know you there's another workload piled on top of your old workload. And so you know, it's kind of a never ending, you know, thing but.

00:03:02

Jack

Yeah, I mean, I just think that like, yeah, certain even within this podcast social and I divide certain parts of the workload, she's spends a lot of time talking to students on the app.

00:03:13

Jack

App communicating with them, recording I my workload is. Yeah, I do like the editing and and and some of the you know adding like little music pieces or whatever to it which actually I enjoy. So it's kind of like my my workload is kind of the fun part and I get the the editing part of it.

00:03:19

Xochitl

Can I have an idea?

00:03:34

Jack

But yeah, it's a it's a shared workload and and you know when you do that, when you share the workload, it makes it a lot easier to finish a project more quickly.

00:03:47

발표자

So.

00:03:50

Xochitl

The second one that I saw some students struggle with was the meaning of emotional labor. When I say emotional labor, what does that mean to you, Jack?

00:03:59

Jack

This one I've actually I'm not too familiar with this term. This seems like uh, maybe something that is a newer.

00:04:07

Xochitl

Kind of a new age term.

00:04:09

Jack

Yeah, just like a Gen. Z kind of thing like.

00:04:12

발표자

Yes.

00:04:15

Jack

Most workload is, that is that does that mean like managing your relationships with other people and and trying to keep those you know keep up with like replying to people on social media and emails and that kind of stuff is that, am I right about is?

00:04:15

발표자

Well, let's yeah.

00:04:33

Jack

That what an emotional workload is.

00:04:35

Xochitl

Yeah, it has a.

00:04:36

Xochitl

Couple of different meanings. So some people said, uh, emotional labor, can you know it can be part of your job, like if you're working in customer service, you know, regulating your emotions and kind of managing customer emotions as well.

00:04:52

Xochitl

But I think a lot more commonly in this new age, we use it when we're talking about women's workload in the home, which a lot of it is invisible labor, which means labor that you cannot necessarily see and appreciate. For example, if you have a stack of.

00:05:12

Xochitl

Dishes and they're all gone, you know, because your mom did them. You can see that. That's another type of Labor. But that's a domestic labor, but.

00:05:23

Xochitl

When the kid comes flying home from school and maybe they got depressed because their friends bullied them and their mom is checking in on their kid day after day for the week and cheering them up and maybe your husband came home from a stressful job and then you have to see the in laws and you have to pick a a gift.

00:05:43

Xochitl

For your mother-in-law, it's a lot of these things that kind of fall under an invisible guys that you can't see the person.

00:05:53

Xochitl

Doing these tasks in the same way, perhaps because they don't have a clean cut result, but overall you're doing a lot of Labor emotionally, kind of like what a a therapist would do, maybe. Or a psychologist would do. So you're you're kind of doing unpaid.

00:06:13

Xochitl

Emotional labor. You're like a, uh, unpaid therapist for your family.

00:06:17

Jack

Right, right. It's like it's not quantitative, but it's qualitative in nature.

00:06:27

발표자

Hmm.

00:06:28

Jack

It's like, uh, yeah, it's it. It's emotionally draining. But you don't really get any credit for it. You know, you do the dishes, you get like, a, you get a little little star sticker, you know, like, good job. You did the you did the dishes, you know, check that off the list. But.

00:06:48

Jack

And.

00:06:49

Jack

Johnny has a skin knee and he, you know, he's scared of skateboards now you know. So you've got to console him for 1/2 an hour. You don't. There's no. There's no sticker for that. You know, there's, there's, that's just.

00:07:07

Jack

I mean, I guess in in the traditional sense they would just say, well, that's parenting. So just, you know, suck it up and and do it you know.

00:07:16

Jack

But it often falls on the the mother's shoulders. You know, she's the one that has to take do the the, the nurturing and the the caring for the child with the skin and the knee and the father kind of gets a pass as he, you know, marches off to his.

00:07:36

Jack

The computer room.

00:07:36

Xochitl

Drink beer and watch TV or something.

00:07:38

Jack

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You didn't ask your mom. Mom will deal with it, you know? Yeah. So emotional labor. I I like it. I dig it. Yeah, I'm. I'm. I think we should be more careful to to consider that, you know.

00:07:43

Xochitl

Yeah.

00:07:54

Xochitl

Yeah, I recognize it. Another thing I noticed that students were struggling with the vocabulary word to describe certain words. Certain chores. Sorry. And they they were missing one and I didn't want to interrupt, but I thought it would be be a good time to introduce the vocabulary word.

00:08:15

Xochitl

Tedious Jack. What does tedious mean when attempts is tedious?

00:08:16

Jack

Hmm.

00:08:18

Jack

Yeah, if something is. If a task or a chore is tedious it it's just it's very.

00:08:25

Jack

Well, I'm going to use another big word to describe a big word. Monotonous and monotonous, means it's very repetitive. It's just like it's something that you do that is, it's not difficult, but it's. But it's time consuming and it's very annoying.

00:08:45

Jack

You know, I'm trying to think of like.

00:08:49

Jack

You know, a lot of a lot of construction work is very tedious. You know, when you're building a a wall like a like a brick wall, you have to just one brick at a time, you know, and it take, you know, it takes a long time to finish that wall. And so it's very just doing the same thing over and over.

00:09:08

Jack

And over and over again 100 * 1000 * 10,000 times. That is very tedious, tedious work.

00:09:18

Jack

Work.

00:09:19

Xochitl

One of our students was talking about how she has a cat and she doesn't like to put her clothing directly into the washer because she's worried that the cat hair will damage her clogged her washer so she takes clothing item by clothing item and puts.

00:09:32

Xochitl

A lint roller.

00:09:33

Xochitl

Over it and gets rid of the cat hair that way. And so she said.

00:09:39

Xochitl

Doing laundry is incredibly tedious task for her.

00:09:43

Xochitl

I was more.

00:09:43

Xochitl

So impressed that anyone would even think to do that, I just toss it in the washer. I I kind of shake things out. Like if I have some my sheets or whatever, I I just shake them out outside and then throw them in the washer.

00:09:50

Jack

Yeah.

00:09:57

Jack

I've got those double stick tape rollers and I roll my clothes too before.

00:10:02

Jack

To get all the dog.

00:10:02

Xochitl

Hair off of him before you put him.

00:10:04

Xochitl

In the washer.

00:10:05

Jack

Yeah, yeah, just just run it up and down my shirt just to get. Yeah, yeah.

00:10:08

Xochitl

Wild. I never. I didn't know this was a thing at all. Blenda doesn't shed hardly at all, so I don't even have this issue. He really doesn't shed. I can be wearing all black and and hug him and he'll sit on my lap and pet him. And. And there's like, no hair on me when I'm.

00:10:16

Jack

Yeah.

00:10:27

Jack

OK. Yeah. Lily is my dog. Sheds a little bit. Not that much, but yeah, just every once in a while I'll take the roller just, you know, go over my my clothes not. Not every time. I'm not like like what she does. You're your student. But I do. We do have those, those rollers, those double stick tape rollers that that are really nice for just getting lint and stuff.

00:10:41

발표자

Hmm.

00:10:48

Jack

Off of your your clothes.

00:10:50

Xochitl

But do you do it before you put it in the washer or do you?

00:10:53

Xochitl

Just do it like.

00:10:53

Jack

Only if I only.

00:10:54

Jack

If I like shave my dog or something, you know, if I give my dog a haircut or something like that, yeah. Then I have to.

00:10:56

Xochitl

Oh yeah.

00:10:59

발표자

Yeah.

00:11:00

Xochitl

I would just shake it, shake it out like that and I don't know, does it. Maybe it sticks to your clothes anyway, I I've.

00:11:07

Xochitl

Never even thought.

00:11:08

Xochitl

About doing this, so that's new cleanliness tips for our listeners I guess out there.

00:11:12

Jack

You have double stick tape rollers. Really good.

00:11:15

Xochitl

Yeah, let us know is that something that you do at home or do you have any other tedious tasks that you often do? Let us know if there's any other vocabulary words that you would like us to cover. If there is a word that you're grasping of or trying to think of to describe as.

00:11:32

Xochitl

Situation. Let us know as well and umm, we'll try our best to come up with some vocabulary words that we can showcase to describe that. So leave a comment down below at AZ englishpodcast.com shoot us an e-mail at [e-mail] and join the channel subgroup to talk to Jack and I directly remember that Jack and I are now hosting an English corner.

00:11:54

Xochitl

Monday through Friday for an hour a day and we have a lot of really great students. It's super fun. So if you would like to be a part of that, if you're interested in that at all, make sure to message Jack privately on WeChat or the A-Z English podcast WhatsApp, and we'll make sure to send you a link. See you guys next.

00:12:12

Xochitl

Time. Bye bye.

00:12:13

Jack

bye

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